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Public Defender Carolyn Reid-Cameron
Public Defender Carolyn Reid-Cameron says she is hoping that the wide ranging investigation launched by her office into the operation and effectiveness of Jamaica's Sex Offender Registry will result in changes to the current arrangement.
Access to the registry is currently limited to law enforcement, designated employers and people with a proven legitimate interest.
Speaking on the Morning Agenda on Power 106 on Wednesday, Mrs. Reid-Cameron said recent tragic incidents have prompted renewed scrutiny of whether such restrictions are achieving the registry's intended purpose.
The public defender said her office has a duty to ensure laws and public systems function as intended without infringing on the constitutional rights of Jamaican citizens.
"We are hoping to go through an information or document gathering stage from all the stakeholders that would be involved, for example, the registry itself, the Department of Correctional Services, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of National Security, just to name a few. And these documents would be treating with the establishment of the entity, how the entity is run, how it is, for example, the register is composed. We will look at the data that comes from that particular bit of interrogation between 2014 when the registry was set up and now," she explained.
As part of the review, the public defender noted that her office will be examining the operations of sex offender registries in other jurisdictions "so that we could do a comparative analysis and see how they work and probably come to conclusion that it relates to their effectiveness".
She said the investigation has started and will result in a final report to be tabled in Parliament and made available to the public.
The latest RJRGLEANER-commissioned polls show that nine out of ten Jamaicans believe the Sex Offender Registry should be made public.